Egypt’s assistant top prosecutor survives assassination attempt

Egyptian security officials inspect the scene following a bomb blast in new Cairo, Egypt, 29 September 2016. The car bomb in New Cairo targeted a vehicle of a passing convoy transporting the country's top prosecutor's assistant, Zakaria Abd El-Aziz, Egypt's interior ministry announced in a statement.

Photograph: EPA/AHOSSAM FADL EGYPT OUT

Egypt’s assistant general prosecutor survived an attempt on his life Thursday when a blast targeted his convoy in Cairo, the Interior Ministry said in a statement on its Facebook page.

A car rigged with explosives and parked by the roadside blew up, targeting Zakaria Abdel-Aziz’s convoy, an official source said.

Abdel-Aziz and his guards escaped the incident unharmed, while one civilian guard who was coincidentally passing by the scene was injured and rushed to a nearby hospital.

Bomb squads and security forces rushed to the area on the outskirts of Cairo to comb the scene for evidence, the source added.

In June 2015, Egyptian prosecution general Hesham Barakat was killed in a similar attack.

Egypt has witnessed a wave of terrorist attacks following the removal of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in 2013. Most of them have been claimed by the Islamic State's local branch.

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